Have you ever dreamed of working from home? Are you tired of waking up early in the morning, leaving the house when it’s dark and coming home when it’s dark? Do you wish you could say goodbye to the office for good and work according to your own schedule? Want to work in your pajamas? Guess what! It’s not totally out of reach!

In total, I’ve worked from home for a few years and while it isn’t for everyone, I personally love it. I love the flexibility that comes with it, and I love that I can work from anywhere and I’m not necessarily tied to one place.

It definitely takes a certain type of person. You need to be self-motivated, organized, and able to work in a solo environment.

Important! If you are prone to laziness, get distracted easily and/or need other people or an office-like environment in order to stay on task, working from home may not be the best option for you!

However, if you’re still considering starting a work-from-home position, this blog is for you!

How to stay motivated & focused when you work from home

Working remotely takes a lot of focus, and it took me a while to figure out the things that worked for me. Here are some of my best tips for staying motivated and focused while working from home:

Create a dedicated work space – Carving out a space for you to work while you’re at home will help your productivity levels soar. (If you read my post about writing tips, you already know how important this dedicated space is ;))

Set a schedule – Although you work from home, you should still create a daily schedule and stick to it! This will help you get in the zone and feel like you’re really doing something.

Get to know yourself – Through trial and error, you’ll be able to figure out when you’re most productive. Then based on that, you can determine when you should be working. (For example, I find that I work the best early in the mornings when the world is still quiet!)

Get ready for the day – Yeah, yeah, yeah. “I’m working from home, so why would I bother getting dressed or putting makeup on?” Well, because it’s proven to make you more productive! Just the simple act of putting some jeans on can make you feel much more motivated to get ‘er done!

Give yourself a break – I’ll be honest, I don’t do this often enough, if at all. I’m one of those people who needs to finish something as soon as I start it, and then I get on a roll and want to knock out tasks. But that isn’t always the best. Take breaks, give your mind a rest, drink water.

Get out! – I’ll also admit I’ve only done this a few times, but if you’re in a rut or having writer’s block, getting out and working at a coffee shop or a park can spark your creativity. (And, it’s a great way to meet new people, which is especially difficult if you’re working remotely!)

Buy 5 planners – Maybe not 5, but you get it. Buy a planner and use it! (This is the one I’m using!) Plan out your entire day and prioritize your tasks. And don’t forget to mark off things you complete, studies show that helps us become motivated to achieve even more!

How I stay organized while working from home

Aside from staying motivated, keeping organized is the most important thing to keep in mind while working from home. These are my favorite planners and apps that hold me accountable!

Best apps to keep you organized:

Evernote – I wouldn’t survive without a space to jot down all my thoughts, ideas and tasks. Aside from my planners, I need an app to help me keep track of my to-do lists. Evernote is perfect because it syncs with my iPhone and iPad, and it even has some awesome templates that make staying organized super easy!

Dropbox – Unless your work uses iCloud or OneDrive, you’re most likely using DropBox to share and upload files. It’s easy, it’s quick and it’s reliable. I use it for my personal work, too!

Asana – This is one of the cleanest, most reliable time-tracking softwares I’ve ever used. You can create teams, projects, run company performance reports, and color code your projects (my favorite feature!). Plus, NASA uses it… so it must be out of this world (I had to… lol)

Noisli or Coffitivity or Rainy Café – Yes, I have them all bookmarked and YES I use them all. Each one has different features and sounds a bit different, so depending on the day or the mood I’m in, I’ll choose one over the other. I can’t work in silence, and sometimes music is too distracting, so these sites are incredible when I need a good, calming white noise!

Every Time Zone – If you’re working remotely chances are, your coworkers are spread out across the globe. This makes collaborating and communicating tricky sometimes, because of the time differences! I love Every Time Zone, because it lays out the different time zones in relation to the current time where you are, so you’ll never be confused again! (Hopefully)

My favorite websites for finding remote jobs

Not every job site is going to make it easy to find remote or work at home jobs, but I’ve done my fair share of searching around and here are my favorites (that DON’T require a membership!)

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49 thoughts on “What It’s Like To Work From Home”

Ohhh you are sharing some serious knowledge here! I have been home with the kids for the last three years and consider myself a part time work from home-er haha I will totally be checking out your favorite sites! XO

Great post, especially for those who might be working independently outside of a corporate set-up. If you can find a great employer, it also helps tremendously as a lot of them are more flexible now as they want to be an employer of choice and appeal to the masses! I work for a large corporation and have the flexibility to work from home 2 days a week which I love being the mom of a busy 4 year old now 🙂

Working from home is such a luxury, isn’t it? And I bet it can be super helpful especially if you’ve got young ones in the house! I love working from home, and I’m glad to see more and more companies warm up to the idea, too!

Thank you for your list! I would like to work from home. I still have one left at home but even if he went to school I would still like to work from home. I juse haven’t found that “real” work from home job yet!

I just got a new job in August and one of the benefits is that it’s extremely flexible so I can WFH when I need to. It was DEFINITELY an adjustment period and figuring out my routine. I am starting an apartment search and one of the key factors is I need space for a desk that I can transform into a miniature office space. My planner (I have the same one) also saves me and keeps me sane.

Congrats on your new position! Having a job that allows you the flexibility to work wherever you need to, is so amazing. I lucked out with my last apartment because it had HUGE windows and a loft, which I turned into my office space! Zillow is my favorite site for apartment/house hunting. Good luck in your search! 🙂

I totally agree, setting up your work space and having a planner come in handy. You’re spending most of your day at your desk you want to make sure everything is where you need it to avoid getting up and sitting back down. I try and have snacks handy to stop me from constantly peeking in the kitchen.

I work from home office.Sometimes it is distracting to work with the kid.But,I finish my all important stuff in the morning when the kid is at school.Afternoon is for other things which I don’t want to concentrate more.I also believe in proper dressing up for the work though I work from home.

Great tips. I teach part time, but I just started a remote writing position as well. I definitely agree with you about actually getting ready for the day and having a dedicated space. Those two things can make all the difference. I’ll also be checking out some of those links!

You have some great advice for this hear. I occasionally work from home although my job is not that conducive to it most of the time. But I find I need to set alarms and give myself breaks and then stop working when I’ve put my day in. I tend to start earlier and work later when at home. I also tend to not move as much, and get a bit slouchy through the day.

I must say, I’m absolutely in love with your blog! Something about the layout is so comfortable and homey! I love it! Anywho, i work from home as well and I wholeheartedly agree with everything you’ve posted 🙂

Wow, thank you so much! I really appreciate that! And I’m glad you agree, I might make an updated one of these posts because the longer I work from home, I pick up on new habits and new tricks that make it easier.

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